


Random Shoes (The Four Day Jones Remix)

by marginaliana



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Episode Related, Multi, Torchwood - Random Shoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-28
Updated: 2008-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 23:24:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn't deserve to be forgotten. Jones and Jones (and Jones).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day 1: Eugene

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Exit Wounds but before The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Beta by aunty_marion.

Eugene walks along the road and comes across a familiar black SUV parked on the shoulder. One of the officers holds up the edge of the crime scene tape and Eugene ducks underneath.

"Thanks," he says absently, crossing to where he can see the team crouched near something in the grass. "Hey, Ianto! Gwen, Jack. The guys at the rope just let me through, so…"

They ignore him.

"I'd say at least fifty miles per hour," says Gwen.

"Travelled on the bonnet, bounced, maybe rolled, smashed his face on the road," says Jack. Neither of them acknowledges him, but Eugene's used to that. What he's not used to is Ianto's blank stare as he scans the scene and looks right through Eugene. Ianto, at least, usually gives a polite hello as he's rushing past. Eugene looks down at the something at the edge of the road. It's a body, and after he gets over the thrill of seeing a live dead body, Eugene realizes that it looks familiar.

"Hey," he says, "excuse me, but that kind of looks a lot like me."

"No bag – nothing," says Ianto. "What was he doing here? Perhaps he was hit deliberately... if he really did have something important to tell us." This last part is murmured.

"Like what?" says Gwen sceptically.

"I don't know," Ianto says, shrugging. "He certainly seemed to think it was important, judging by the number of times he tried to talk to us."

It more than looks like him, Eugene thinks. It _is_ him.

"I think it's just an ordinary RTA," says Jack gently. He picks up one of the body's hands.

"Guys?" says Eugene. Something here is very, very wrong.

"It was a red car. There's red paint under his fingernails."

Eugene takes a step closer. "Am I dead?" he asks, almost not wanting to know the answer. He reaches out to Ianto but staggers back in shock when his hand goes right through Ianto's shoulder. He looks around, eyes wild.

"Am I dead?"

\------

Eugene registers, in the back of his mind, that the phone lying in the grass is ringing. Gwen answers it and says something to the person on the other end, but her words just sound like nonsense in Eugene's ears.

"What happened?" says Eugene. "How did I end up here? I mean, I'm dead, but I'm not dead. So ... Shit!"

Jack pushes himself up from his crouch forcefully and strides back towards the SUV without a word. As Eugene feels himself beginning to freak out, Gwen and Ianto exchange a look, then follow Jack hastily. Eugene strides after them, heart pumping.

"So, what? Am I a ghost or a zombie? Oh, God. Right, calm. Better stick with Torchwood. They'll know what to do."

Gwen pulls the door of the SUV open, then pauses and looks at Jack. Eugene climbs inside while she's distracted.

"Come on, Gwen," Eugene says, "stop mooning and let's get on with figuring out why I'm all ghosty. Jack's not _that_ good looking."

Well, okay, yeah he is, he thinks, but then there's Ianto. The object of Eugene's train of thought is sitting in the passenger seat facing pointedly forward. Eugene tries to catch Ianto's eye in the rear-view mirror and has another nasty shock.

"Oh, what?! Of course, I'm invisible. Why am I invisible?" He shivers.

Finally Jack and Gwen get in. "Anything on his phone for today?" Jack asks.

Gwen flips through. "Just some pictures of random shoes."

"Mind if I look?" says Ianto. He holds his hand back for the phone and Gwen passes it over. Jack starts the SUV and they drive off in silence.

\-----

Eugene doesn't remember how he got here. Oh, he remembers the big picture of his life – the school failure that destroyed his family and left him with nothing but a mysterious alien eye to show for it; the years following in which he solidified his purpose waiting for the alien to return for what he'd left behind; his first meeting with Torchwood.

He remembers seeing Ianto for the first time then, climbing out of that hulking SUV, wearing a suit and looking every inch the James Bond figure that Eugene had been anxiously expecting. Even their leader in his big flappy coat wasn't as impressive as Ianto's calm professionalism. Eugene wanted Ianto and wanted to _be_ him, both feelings mixing with his nerves and rolling over him in a flash of emotion. He felt himself flush.

"Hurry up, Ianto!" the flappy coat guy called. And Ianto smiled at Eugene, a quick flash of teeth and a nod of the head as he hefted up the equipment from the hatch of the SUV and followed the others over to the remains of something strange.

Eugene dropped his papers then, without being able to get out even a word, and then he had to scramble to catch them all again. When he looked up again, Ianto was kneeling over the body or whatever, utterly focused. Eugene sighed and went home.

He remembers every time he'd seen them, the Torchwood team. Ianto seemed to come into the field only some of the time, so Eugene slowly learned the names of the rest of the team. Jack, the flappy coat guy; Owen, the frog-like one who was most likely to make a cruel remark at Eugene's expense; Tosh, the quiet one; Gwen, gap-toothed, always making up to the officers on the scene.

He never managed to talk to any of them more than a few sentences at a time. They simply rushed past, always busy, intent on dealing with the crisis or unexplained phenomenon of the day. Even Ianto only ever had an apologetic smile and a "hello" to offer, cut short by Jack's call and possessive glance.

Eugene remembers all of this, remembers his life, such as it was. A life spent waiting and watching and wanting. But he doesn't remember why he's dead.

\-----

Gwen breaks the news of Eugene's death to his mother. Eugene thinks he ought to be there, thinks he wants to see if she really did love him, but then after the first moment he can't bear the look on her face. He follows Ianto into his bedroom instead.

"Not quite how I'd hoped to get you in here," Eugene jokes, watching Ianto systematically rifle through the magazines and papers on the desk. "I was thinking more about coffee, a curry, a kiss in your secret underground lair…"

Ianto opens the display cabinet and runs a finger along the shelf.

"That's my collection," Eugene says proudly. "Alien artefacts." Ianto's hand stops at an empty display stand. He sticks his head out into the living room and calls to Gwen.

She comes into the bedroom. "What is it?"

Ianto gestures at the shelf. "Space junk collection, well, some. Mostly just weird bits of metal and old Roman coins and so on. But he's got a half-melted Gnarlfarkian flute in here," Ianto points to something Eugene had always thought was a laser blaster, "and a very nice piece of Tholian fur."

"Not as useless as we thought, then?" Gwen murmurs. Ianto gives her a look that Eugene can't quite interpret.

"Something missing, though," says Ianto. "This stand here, it was empty. It's possible whatever it was had something to do with how he died."

Gwen takes the stand from him and carries it back into the sitting room, Ianto following on her heels and Eugene just a step behind.

"Why didn't they stop?" Eugene's mother asks. "They killed my boy and just drove on…"

"That's what we're here to find out," says Ianto gently. "Mrs. Jones, do you know what's missing from Eugene's collection?"

Gwen shoots him a disapproving look but holds out the display stand. "It was in this stand here," she says.

"It could be important," says Ianto.

The question eases the pain from Mrs. Jones' face for just a moment. "It must have been that daft eye of his," she said. "He was always going on about it. Alien eye, and one day the alien was going to come back for it and then things would be different." She smiles fondly.

Eugene sees Ianto and Gwen exchange a look out of the corner of his eye, but his focus is on his mother.

"Look, Mum," he says, "I think there's probably been some mistake. But don't you worry. We've got the best team ever working on this. Torchwood will sort it out."

"We'd better take his collection just in case," says Gwen. Ianto disappears into the bedroom again. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Jones." Eugene's mother begins to cry.

"Look, Mum, I gotta go," Eugene says. Ianto comes out of the bedroom with a box.

"If there's anything else you can tell us about that alien eye," he says, but Eugene's mother just shakes her head. Ianto balances the box in one arm and lays a comforting hand on Mrs. Jones' shoulder.

"I'm sorry," he says. Eugene follows them out of the house and back to the SUV.

\-----

Eugene is shocked by how spot-on his ideas about Torchwood were when they get to headquarters.

"When you Torchwood people do a secret underground lair, you really go all the way," he says to himself. "Big giant rolling door, alarms… pterodactyl. This is… This is… I am totally… Christ almighty! The Head of Vexor 11. No way! And… Wow, a hand… in a jar, okay, sure."

"We should find out what he last ate," says Ianto, setting the box of Eugene's belongings onto one of the desks. "And where he's been. What was he doing out on the road?"

"I don't know," says Gwen wearily. "Playing with his lightsaber? He was a geek."

Eugene scoffs and is relieved to see Ianto give Gwen an incredulous look.

"Who can we get to do the autopsy?" Ianto says. "I don't have the training, and you..." Eugene feels himself go a bit faint at the thought of an autopsy and leans on the railing of the stairs down to the medical bay. He's _seen_ CSI, thank you very much. Then he realizes he's leaning next to his own dead body and staggers over to one of the desks instead.

"Not a chance," says Gwen. "We could call Martha, though," she offers.

"Jack won't want her involved, not after…" Ianto trails off as Gwen nods. "I don't want to—"

"Okay," says Jack, coming down the steps from his office with a file folder in his hand. He stops a few feet from the desk where Eugene is standing and doesn't look down into the medical bay. "A red Vauxhall's been stopped outside Caernarfon. _Very_ drunk guy admits knocking a man over near Cardiff, victim fits Eugene's description. The man says he thought he'd be okay, so he kept going."

Ianto looks over the railing at the body and Eugene has to swallow hard. He makes himself examine Jack's blank face rather than following the line of Ianto's gaze.

"Still," Ianto says, "don't you think there's something odd about all this?"

"It was a road accident and there was no alien involved," says Jack firmly.

"I'm not so sure."

"Ianto…"

"Look, it's sad that he died," says Gwen, "but what can we do?"

"Same as we do with any strange situation – we investigate it," says Ianto.

"We can't afford to investigate." Jack's voice is flat.

"We can't afford _not to_," Ianto counters. "It's what we're here for."

"We're here to save the world from interplanetary blowfish, not from humans who've had a pint too many. I need you on call for emergencies, not wasting your time on a cut and dried accident. Drop it, okay?"

Eugene's head snaps back and forth between the two men as their voices get more and more heated.

"But Jack—" Ianto takes a step towards Jack, lifting one hand tentatively.

"I said drop it!"

Ianto jerks back, curling his hand into a fist. He stares at Jack, eyes wide.

"Go home," Jack continues. "Be back at the usual time tomorrow."

Ianto takes another step closer. "I was going to—"

"Go home," Jack repeats. Ianto's face shutters and he grabs his suit jacket off the railing before walking stiffly up the stairs.

"I'll just, er," says Eugene, then gives it up and follows Ianto. He catches Gwen giving Jack a pointed look out of the corner of his eye as he goes up the stairs.

Ianto walks steadily out through the tourist office and then sags against the brick wall, pinching the bridge of his nose between his right thumb and forefinger. He takes a deep breath of the cool night air, and Eugene fidgets a little, shifting from one foot to the other.

"So thanks," he tells Ianto. "Not that you can hear me, but. Thanks for trying."

Before he can say anything more Gwen hauls the door open, stopping short in surprise at seeing Ianto still there.

"You all right?"

"I'm not giving up on this," says Ianto.

"Is it because he had a bit of a crush on you?" Gwen asks. "Eugene, I mean."

Eugene cringes a little. He hadn't thought he was that obvious.

"No, of course not," says Ianto. "We never had the time of day for him, but now I've seen that collection. Well, most of it was complete balls, of course, but he had a few good pieces in there. Maybe he really did have something important to tell us."

"But Jack said—"

Ianto laughs, the sound harsh against the soft noises of the wind and the water. "That doesn't matter. We all have our _pet projects_."

From the way he says it, Eugene has a pretty good idea there's some history there. His suspicions are confirmed by Gwen's pained hiss. She looks away.

"Oh," she says quietly, and then she looks back at Ianto and her voice gets firmer. "But Jack knew what he was doing then, didn't he? I learned my lesson."

Ianto closes his eyes briefly and then straightens from the wall, looking Gwen straight in the eye. "I'm not replacing Lisa with Jack," he says with quiet force. "That's _my_ lesson. No one gets unthinking allegiance from me, not anymore."

He strides off across the Plass, leaving both Gwen and Eugene to stare open-mouthed after him. When he disappears from sight, Eugene shakes himself.

"Sooooooo," he wonders aloud, looking at Gwen. "What am I supposed to do now?"

\-----

Eugene goes home again, since he doesn't know where Ianto lives and has no particular desire to follow Gwen about. When he gets there, though, he wishes he hadn't. He stands outside in the dark and watches the flat all lit up inside. His mother cries, a constant drizzle of tears flowing down her cheeks because she's obviously too tired to sob; his brother doesn't look up from his video game, even at the dinner table. When Eugene was home he'd always tried to rub the edges off Terry's disinterest, and now that they think he's dead he can see how much it's going to bother his mother to have no one to talk to.

He feels tired, and even though he doesn't know if he can sleep, he lies down on the lawn and curls into as small a ball as possible. He knows he could go inside and sleep in his own bed, but something keeps him from doing it. He doesn't belong in there anymore. He doesn't know where he belongs.


	2. Day 2: Ianto

It's only just gone ten thirty and already Ianto is ready for the day to be over. The thing is, he's just got too much to do. He's already tidied the Hub, done Jack's filing from the day before, picked up the dry cleaning, visited a video store that will definitely not be getting his business in the future, and choked down his breakfast – two eggs, ham, and chips, plus an utterly loathsome cup of coffee not even up to the standards that Owen made (used to make, Ianto reminds himself) – at the cafe around the corner. Now he pauses in front of the blank, dingy windows of the office building and thinks about going back to the tourist office. There is coffee to be made, reports to tackle, and plenty of brochures for the Creepy Cardiff Walking Tour that could use being sorted and stacked into nice neat little piles for the visitors. And, well, Jack will probably be wondering where he is.

But at the same time, he's just not ready to give up yet. He remembers arriving at crime scene after crime scene and finding Eugene already there, waiting with that look of eager hope on his face. How, he wonders, did Torchwood never manage to kill that hope, when they've killed so much else? There must have been something about Eugene that they missed, something strong. He can't do anything for Tosh now, can't solve the computer puzzle she'd been working on in the days before she died, can't promise to make sure Tommy has a good life. He can't do anything for Owen, can't tell him how proud Jack was of him, can't bring back any of the women Owen loved. And he apparently can't do anything for Jack, who's still alive but living like he's dead. But he can do this one thing, maybe, can find out why Eugene died. It's worth something.

He pulls one of the doors open and smiles his best professional smile at the receptionist. Probably a lot of people would find the office depressing, but to Ianto it just feels comfortable. Then again, he's spent a significant portion of his life making coffee for psychopaths and aliens, so telemarketing would almost be a step up. Almost.

He pulls out the phone and opens up the picture of the shoes again. It has to be important, Ianto thinks, because why else take a picture of some random shoes, especially if you just happen to take it on the day you died? Though it was typical of Eugene to have gone for the shoes, rather than faces or something actually useful for identification. Well-meaning, but always the wrong end of the stick – that was Eugene all over.

Ianto scouts the office, comparing the shoes of the people he sees with the picture. Ugly brown Hush Puppies – no. Several pairs of solid lace-ups – nice, but no match. A long line of women in uncomfortable heels – no. Ianto begins to feel like he's being watched, and he knows he's drawing attention to himself by walking around like this. And then he finds an exact match – a pair of greenish-gray trainers sticking out from underneath the khakis in a feeble attempt at business casual.

This must be Gary, he thinks, not knowing why. The man looks like a Gary – solid, average-looking, with a mop of hair that mimics his clothes in being completely unkempt. Putting his supposition to the test Ianto walks over to the water cooler and asks.

"Yeah, yeah. How do you, er… ? Are you…?" Gary stutters through his reply.

"My name is Ianto Jones. I'm investigating Eugene's death."

Gary makes a strangled noise.

"Can you tell me," Ianto continues, "did you happen to see Eugene the day he died?"

"No," says Gary. "No, sorry." Then he turns and walks away without another word, leaving Ianto open-mouthed behind him at this display of grief.

"Is it true? He got run over?" A voice interrupts Ianto's musings.

Ianto turns. The woman hesitates, then steps closer. She's a little bit pretty, with reddish brown hair and an oval-shaped face, but there are lines worn around her eyes and her makeup is a little too thick.

"Yes," Ianto says warily.

"Oh, God. Sorry, I'm Linda. I'm a Silver Seller." She sniffles a little and blinks her eyes. Ianto reaches into his jacket and pulls out a carefully ironed handkerchief. He doesn't know whether to hand it to her or just hold it out, so he settles for shifting closer so that she can take it without him seeming too obvious.

He lets her sniffle for a moment, then prompts her. "Silver Seller?"

"It's all about belief, see?" says Linda, wiping her eyes. "If necessary, I _am_ Kitchens for a Lifetime. Eugene was only ever himself."

Ianto feels his mouth quirk into a little bit of a smile. "Mmmm? Not particularly talented as a salesman, was Eugene?"

"Oh, no," says Linda. "I think Craig kept him on out of the goodness of his heart. Have you met Craig?"

"Your boss?" asks Ianto. He hesitates, then lowers his voice and plunges ahead, because he knows that tone. He's heard it in his own voice. "Are you two…?" Linda nods.

"But I can't talk about it here 'cause of Craig's, you know… position," she says.

Ianto nods understandingly, then looks at his watch. "Listen… I want to ask you a few more questions. Do you want to meet after work?" Linda nods again.

"Sure, meet you downstairs then?"

"At seven? All right." Just then Ianto's phone rings and he steps off to one side of the hallway to answer it, cringing inside.

"What is it, Gwen?"

"Jack wants to know where you are. He said it can't possibly take this long to haggle with the drycleaners."

"Bollocks," says Ianto.

"Are you sure I shouldn't call Martha?" asks Gwen. "It's just. She seemed to make him a bit more mellow, when she was here."

"No, Gwen. Look, I'll be right there."

He forces himself to smile at Linda as he quickly threads his way back through the maze of cubicles, but the raw feeling in his stomach is reminding him why he doesn't do this sort of thing often. Ianto hates sneaking. It had come as an unpleasant surprise when it turned out he was exceptionally good at it.

When he was hiding Lisa in the basement of the Hub, he'd justified it by building up his anger at everyone else, his hatred of Owen's slimy pizza boxes and Jack's endless requests for coffee and files and picking up the biros that he "dropped" beside his desk ten times per day. He told himself they deserved it. But when she died, Ianto had been ashamed to find that a significant part of what he felt was relief.

No more secrets, Jack had said, and Ianto had wanted more than anything to believe it could be that way.

"Do as I say, not as I do," Ianto says bitterly as he gets into his car. He puts the key in the ignition, then stops and pulls his phone and Eugene's out of his pocket. He dials Gary, gets voicemail. "Listen, Gary, this is Ianto Jones again. I have a few more questions for you, so I'll give you a call tomorrow, okay?"

\-----

The rest of the day is, oh, yes, just as crap as the beginning. When Ianto gets back with the dry cleaning and the milk and the ingredients for Myfanwy's protein sauce, Jack gives him one of those looks, stony and blank, that seems to rip at his insides. By that point, though, Ianto's had time to work up his anger again, reminding himself of the way Jack treats everyone else like children, the way he proudly hoards the pieces of his life like he's doing them all a great service by setting himself apart. The way Jack hasn't touched him since Tosh and Owen died. So instead of being intimidated or ashamed Ianto matches Jack stare for stare, shoves the hanger with the shirts into Jack's hand, and goes back upstairs without another word.

There are no disasters today, so Ianto stays in the Tourist Office all afternoon. Gwen IMs him and he tells her to make her own bloody coffee before logging off. He goes through the box of Eugene's belongings, sorting them into the categories of "interesting," "possibly interesting," and "future jumble sale items." If Jack comes up while he's working on this, Ianto thinks, then at least they can yell at each other instead of stumbling along in miserable silence.

What ends up in the "interesting" pile is the stand from Eugene's supposed alien eye, the contents of Eugene's pockets (keys, scraps of paper, a bit of lint), and a pile of index cards with Eugene's notes about his collection (mostly wrong). He puts the card for the alien eye on top; it's the only item he couldn't find, and nothing else in the collection is valuable enough to inspire any real interest.

There isn't enough information to allow for conclusions, Ianto decides, so he tucks the interesting items into his bag and stashes everything else back in the box. Then a family of four walks in to ask directions to Llandaff Cathedral, the start of a flow of tourists that keeps him busy for the next few hours. The feeling of being watched never quite goes away, and that keeps him on edge, too.

But by six o'clock, the edge of Ianto's anger has been blunted. He's glad Jack stayed in his office all day, glad he didn't get the fight he was spoiling for. The fight, of course, is not really what Ianto wants, and he's not too proud to admit it. He wants Tosh back, quietly finding the exact thing to say to and make the rest of them all feel ashamed of themselves, and Owen, with his ability to make everyone united in irritation. Most of all he wants Jack – whimsical, charming, flirty Jack or even melodramatic, childish Jack; he wants to play strip Trivial Pursuit and have Jack argue about how none of the twentieth century events actually happened quite the way the cards imply; he wants to feel jealous of Gwen again, rather than jealous of the soil of Cardiff. It isn't fair of him to have so little patience, he knows, not when Jack spent more than a thousand years underground (half-asleep and half-dead after those first few deaths, Jack said, not waking and dying each time). But if there's one thing Torchwood has taught Ianto, it's that fairness rarely comes into the equation.

Ianto meets Linda in front of the office building at seven on the dot. He takes her to one of his favourite coffee shops, one with fresh scones even in the evening. They take a table away from the windows so that Ianto won't be tempted to watch the passers by while he listens.

"Tell me," he asks Linda, wrapping his fingers around the warm mug, "was there anything particularly strange about Eugene in the last week or so? Anything he did that seemed odd?"

"Well," says Linda, "one day he came in, very low."

"Why?"

"He wouldn't talk about it. Anyway, I was fed up too because Craig had..." Linda looks away and Ianto gives her a supportive smile even though she can't see it. "Well, anyway, I said, I'd love to get away from it all and go to Australia. Eugene suddenly got very excited. He said, 'Yes! You've got to go.' I said, 'But I haven't got the money,' and he said he'd get it for me."

Ianto raises his eyebrows. "He was going to take you to Australia with him? Was he in love with you?"

"Oh, no!" Linda seems shocked by the idea. "He loved someone he said was unattainable. He was just trying to look after me. He said, 'Don't stay here and waste your life waiting for something that may never happen.'"

Ianto wonders about Eugene's unattainable love. He's identified all the names in Eugene's phone and none seem like they could fall into that category (of the names that aren't actually take out restaurants, most are relatives and co-workers and a few school friends). Unless it was Gary, Ianto thinks. In a split second he conjures up a melodrama of a story in his mind – Eugene confessing his love to Gary; Gary sadly and unbendingly straight and unable to return Eugene's love; despairing, Eugene runs out into the road. It would explain the extremity of Gary's reaction, if he thought he'd caused it all. After a moment, Ianto discards the thought. Gary just doesn't seem like Eugene's type somehow, especially considering his supposed crush on Ianto.

"But where was he going to get the money?" he asks Linda, forcing himself to focus on the story.

"Exactly," says Linda. "I said, 'You haven't even had a new pair of socks in six years.' He stood up, and he said..."

Ianto's phone rings, and he checks it quickly. It's Gwen, but she's not using the urgent ring so he hits "ignore" and turns his attention back to Linda.

"Sorry, he said…?"

"He said, 'I'm going to sell it.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'My alien artefact.'"

"The eye?"

"Yeah, that's the one. You've seen it?"

Ianto nods just to keep her going.

"Load of rubbish, I thought," she says. "He brought it into the office and it just looked so… so cheap, you know? Some people laughed. But he went ahead, put it up on eBay and all, and of course, it just sat there. Then, out of the blue – two pounds fifty. A kid from Birmingham. And then that was just the beginning. Two hundred… Three hundred… A thousand… They just kept on going up. Three thousand pounds! For a spare body part. Pete said you can get a bathroom suite with a celebrity appearance for less than that! Then one day, it just… jumped. Fifteen thousand five pounds fifty."

"Who bought it?" Ianto asks. This must be important, he thinks. That's the kind of value someone would kill for, alien or human.

"I've no idea," says Linda. She hesitates, looking down at her mug. "Is it all my fault?"

Ianto tucks a finger under Linda's chin and lifts it until she's looking him in the eye. "No," he says, trying to put all the conviction he can manage into his voice. "It's not your fault." He hardly knows Linda, but he'll do anything he can to keep her from feeling that kind of guilt, the kind he knows only too well. He'll carry the names of Togo Tanazaki and Annie Lander with him until he dies.

Before he can reassure her further, his phone rings again.

"Sorry," he says, and looks at it. It's not Gwen this time, but a number that looks only faintly familiar.

He flips it open. "Ianto Jones."

The voice on the other end is tentative.

"H-hello. It's Eugene's mum. There's something I think you should see."

\-----

Mrs. Jones offers Ianto a cup of tea before showing him the video. He chokes down just enough of it to be polite as he watches. It makes for pretty depressing viewing, not because of Eugene's performance but because of his father's commentary. Ianto once again feels a sense of kinship with the dead young man, knows that feeling of wanting to live up to someone you admire and failing every time.

The video comes to an end and Mrs. Jones switches the television off.

"Someone gave him the eye then, as a consolation prize?" Ianto asks.

"Yeah, it was that Mr. Garrett, the science teacher," says Mrs. Jones. "A plastic eye!" She scoffs. "Still, Eugene treasured it."

Ianto makes a mental note to follow up with the science teacher.

Eugene's brother looks up from his video game. "That was the night Dad walked out," he says.

"Went away, Terry," Mrs. Jones corrects.

"You can stop now, Mum," says Terry.

"What do you mean?" says Mrs. Jones, looking nervous.

"Eugene's dead," says Terry. "He may have been able to square the root of the square root, but he couldn't cross the road! Dad left when he found out Eugene was a failure. That's what Eugene said."

"That's not true," says Mrs. Jones fiercely. "He went 'cos of his job. He has a very important job."

Ianto intensely wishes he weren't hearing this, but he knows there could be something in it.

"Does Mr. Jones know about Eugene?" he asks.

"Well, you see, he works for a big corporation in America," says Mrs. Jones.

"Stop giving us that shit!" shouts Terry, dropping the game onto the sofa. "He's not Superman, Mum! He works at a garage on Filey Road. Eugene found him about two weeks ago. He found him on the internet. He's a cashier. Works nights."

Two weeks ago, Ianto thinks. That must have been what prompted Eugene to sell the eye. He'd kept it for so long, waiting for the alien to come back and claim it. That's what Mrs. Jones had said before. And then he found out his dad had walked out on them, walked out because of Eugene's failure. It must have felt like everything he'd ever known had come crashing down.

Like Lisa, Ianto thinks, like Jack. Finding out the person you loved wasn't loving you while you were apart, finding out they were someone else entirely. Finding out that even when they were around, they were somewhere else in their head.

"Thanks for showing me this, Mrs. Jones," Ianto says. She's sobbing into a handkerchief now and Terry's staring sullenly at the carpet. Ianto rests a hand on her shoulder. He wants to tell her it's better not to live a lie, but he's not sure if he believes it. He's retconned enough people just trying to preserve those lies, hasn't he? He's almost taken the pill himself a time or two. Because wasn't he happier then, thinking he could save Lisa? Wasn't he happier thinking he could find a family at Torchwood, find someone to love again? He's stripped of those illusions now.

He pats her shoulder and says, "I'm sorry. I need to go."

A few minutes later he's pulling up in front of the store in Filey Road. He turns off the engine and leans back in the seat. A man leaves the store, and even from across the road Ianto can see the resemblance to Eugene in the shape of his face.

He unbuckles his seatbelt and starts to get out of the car, then stops, as if jerked back by an invisible chain. The man over there abandoned his family, had people who loved him and just walked away. Now one of them is dead and Ianto just can't bring himself to be the one who tells him. Mrs. Jones will call him, or she won't. It's not Ianto's place to decide.

Ianto shuts the door of the car and puts his seatbelt back on. "It's all right," he says, as if to comfort someone. He guesses it must be himself. "It's all right."

\-----

It's late now, but Ianto goes back to the Hub, hoping to look up the eBay auction before the morning. Jack won't be asleep, but maybe he'll be brooding on the roof and Ianto can slip in as far as the tourist office without being noticed.

He's only been there a few minutes, though, when the door to the lift opens and Jack steps out. His face is impassive, but Ianto can see the signs of weariness in it, the slight hollowing underneath his eyes.

"Gwen said she couldn't reach you," Jack says.

"She didn't use the emergency code," says Ianto. He looks back at the screen. "If it's not an emergency, then my evenings are my own."

"Why are you doing this?" Jack asks. "He's dead."

"I know he's dead, Jack," says Ianto, rolling his eyes. "It's… this is for me as much as it is for him."

"Ianto, we have to move on. You don't understand—"

Ianto is suddenly furious. "No, Jack, _you_ don't understand. Whatever you're calling this, moving on isn't it. Not for me. Maybe you can say, 'I loved, I lost,' and that's it, but I can't." He bites back the rest, everything he could say about his mother and Canary Wharf and Lisa, feeling the blood rise in his face as he turns back to the computer.

There is a long moment of silence. When Jack's voice comes, it's subdued.

"What do you think happened to him, then?"

Ianto bites his lip. "I'm not sure yet. He had an alien eye in his collection and sold it on eBay. There must be some connection there."

"What," says Jack, "like a sixth eye? A Dogon sixth eye?"

"Possibly," says Ianto. "I haven't seen it yet. The pictures for the auction are too blurry to tell." He wants Tosh for this project, wants her uncanny eye for working with amateur photographs. Instead he'll have to make do with Photoshop tutorials.

"There was a trade in them," says Jack. "Who's got it?"

"That's what I need to track down next." He tries not to sound impatient.

"It'd be good to have," Jack says after a pause, and Ianto can tell he's forcing his voice to sound light. "Lets you see behind you, where you've been. Kind of puts things in perspective. It's useful, fun, slightly terrifying; that's why they're in demand."

"I can get it for you," says Ianto. He risks a glance away from the computer. Jack's face is still impassive, but it looks wearier somehow.

"Okay," says Jack with a puff of air that is almost a sigh. "You've got the weekend. But keep your phone on."

He doesn't look Ianto in the eye as he turns and goes back into the lift. Ianto waits until Jack is gone and then pinches the bridge of his nose. Well, he thinks, that's something. The feeling of being watched is gone.


	3. Day 3: Eugene

Eugene smiles at Ianto as they stride down the street towards Gary's flat. The sun is shining brightly on them. Ianto's face is intent and Eugene feels something in his heart warm at the sight.

He looks up at the poorly sealed windows of the building, then up further to the worn slope of the roof. Gary's flat is on the garden level, so they'd spent most of their time up there where it sloped just slightly too much for comfort, their feet wedged against the gutters and bottles of Coke balanced between their legs as they watched the stars. He looks further up again into the cloudless blue sky, remembering what it was like with the slick surface of the tiles digging into his back and the whole sky open above him. He'd always known there was something out there, something beyond the twinkly lights that other people saw. But Ianto's seen what's out there, he's actually _met_ aliens. If there's anyone who can figure out what happened to Eugene, it's Ianto.

"Thanks for this, Ianto," Eugene says. "I know Jack's been giving you a hard time." In fact, a hard time is the least of it, and Eugene has to admit with a little jealous shrug that he doesn't understand half of what he's seen pass between the two men. "But I'm glad you fought for me," he says. "I'd trust you with my life. If, you know, I still had one."

Ianto knocks on Gary's door and after a second it swings open. When Gary sees who it is, he starts to shut the door again but Ianto quickly sticks his foot between the door and the jamb. Eugene gives a little cheer at how badass it is.

"Mind if I come in?" Ianto asks grimly.

"I've got things to do," Gary says faintly.

"Such as?" asks Ianto.

Then Gary seems to sag. "I'm not proud of what I've done," he says, and Eugene gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He follows Ianto inside.

It turns out that yet another thing Eugene believed was a lie; Gary had been bidding on his alien eye. Not some rich collector, not the alien itself. Just Gary.

"But why?" says Ianto quietly. He's perched on a stool at Gary's kitchen counter and watching Gary like a predator.

Gary looks miserable. "At first, just to cheer him up. He was upset about something; wouldn't talk about it. But then the bidding took off and we got… I mean, I was involved at first. I was just helping Eugene make money, and then one morning, suddenly, out of nowhere - bam! Fifteen thousand. I mean, the bid jumped to a cool cowin' fifteen thousand."

Ianto taps a finger against his mouth. "I thought it was fifteen thousand five fifty."

"Yeah, it was, yeah," says Gary, eyes downcast. "I mean, I wouldn't spend that kind of money unless it was my own personal private body part or something. Would you?"

Ianto ignores that. Instead, he opens Eugene's phone and looks at the picture of the shoes again. "You saw Eugene the day he died, then?"

"Yeah," says Gary. "I met up with him before he went to meet the alien. We had a cup of coffee. He was scared."

"Was I?" says Eugene. Then he pauses. "Yeah, 'course I was."

"So he went to make the exchange," Gary continues.

"Where? Somewhere on the A48, right?"

Ah, Eugene thinks. Now Ianto's getting to the heart of it. "That's where I died," Eugene says.

"Or not," says Gary.

Ianto tilts his head to the side. "Or not?"

"Eugene was very secretive," says Gary, still looking at his trainers. "Could have been in Splott, even."

"Splott?" says Eugene incredulously.

"Splott?" says Ianto at the same moment.

"That doesn't sound right, mate," says Eugene. "I dunno why."

Ianto's mouth twists to one side. He holds out the phone. "Who are these people with you, Gary? And why would Eugene take a photo of your shoes? Why not your face?"

Gary looks at the picture for a split second before raising his eyes to Ianto's face. "They're just random shoes." He lets out a puff of breath and looks away. "I miss him," he says.

Eugene suddenly doesn't want to look at Gary anymore. He'd thought, sometimes, that no one besides his mum would miss him if he'd died, or even if he'd just buggered off. Ianto, he'd thought in his most bitter moments, wouldn't even notice. But here was his proof otherwise – Ianto risking his job to investigate Eugene's death, Gary close to tears in the middle of his kitchen.

He's so caught up in his emotions that he almost misses Ianto patting Gary awkwardly on the arm and standing up.

"Listen," Ianto says, "thanks for telling me this. At least it gives me a place to start." He gives Gary a look, starts to say something else, then closes his mouth and turns back toward the front door. Shaking himself, Eugene hurries after him.

\-----

The rest of Ianto's inquiries that day are unproductive and depressing. They visit Eugene's fifth grade science teacher (old Mr. Garrett, still kicking along but not able to tell Ianto much of anything about the eye) and his bank, and spend a couple of hours looking through his browsing history and various eBay account records finding nothing in particular. Eugene is tired and frustrated by the time he follows Ianto back to his flat. He's almost too irritated to look around, but after he sags onto the sofa his mind involuntarily starts examining his surroundings.

Ianto's flat is small and neat, which doesn't surprise Eugene, though perhaps there was a part of him that imagined Ianto living in a draughty old castle with his own butler, like Batman. The kitchen goes along one wall of the living room and a large, flash coffee machine takes up a corner of the countertop. Besides the sofa, there are three full bookshelves and a coffee table, and a small television on a stand in the corner.

The walls are covered with pictures. Ianto is in a few of them, mostly with his arm around a beautiful girl with dark skin and large eyes, or with people who must be his parents judging by the resemblance. He's also in a few obviously posed photos of the Torchwood team, standing awkwardly at the edge of the group. In one of these, the captain was reaching out to pull Ianto closer just as the shot was taken, and Eugene can see a look of uncertain hope on Ianto's face. The rest of the photos are of the team in different configurations – Jack posing solemnly while Gwen stands behind and holds up her fingers to give him bunny ears, Tosh and Jack bent over a computer, Owen in what must be the kitchen of their secret base with three coffee mugs in one hand and a fistful of foam in the other. Some of these look like stills from video footage. And there are a few landscapes as well – Eugene recognizes the Plass, of course, and there's a view of the city from a well-placed rooftop as well as several pictures of wooded areas that he can't place.

While Eugene takes all this in, Ianto sets his bag in the floor of the closet just inside the door and leans against the wall. He looks discouraged, and Eugene feels suddenly guilty.

"I know if I just try, I can remember something else," he tells Ianto, who crosses the living room to look out the window. "I saw Gary. I saw Gary and then… what?"

Ianto pulls the closet door shut with a flick of his wrist and takes the few steps across the floor to the sofa. He slumps against the armrest and pulls his feet up onto the cushion, letting his head hang down.

To Eugene, Ianto looks suddenly, inexplicably exhausted. He's catalogued a fair few of Ianto's expressions over his time dogging Torchwood's footsteps; he's seen Ianto amused, disgusted, patient, and embarrassed, not to mention mildly annoyed (fairly frequent), flat out irritated (common), and right the way up into ticked off (rare, but all the more spectacular for it). But he's never seen this level of tiredness, never seen it present in every line of Ianto's body. Eugene stretches out a hand to brush against Ianto's face, something in his chest aching to know it won't be felt.

"I don't know what I'm doing," Ianto says to no one. "He's gone. Maybe Jack's right. I should have learned by now how to move on." Eugene lets his hand drop.

There is a knock at the door. Ianto pushes himself to his feet and crosses over to it, peers through the peephole before shrugging and unhitching the chain. He opens the door and ushers a woman inside.

She looks familiar, Eugene thinks, sitting up attentively. He's seen her with them once, maybe, climbing out of the SUV at one of the countless crime scenes he's visited. He doesn't know her name, but he knows her smile. It's the same smile they all wore then, the smile that says "this is an adventure."

"What are you doing here?" Ianto asks.

"A nice welcome!" the woman says. "Gwen called me. She's worried about you."

Ianto snorts. "She just doesn't want to have to feed the pterodactyl," he says, gesturing the woman to have a seat on the sofa. Eugene quickly gets up and moves out of the way to stand awkwardly against a bookcase. Almost immediately Ianto's face softens. "No, I shouldn't say that."

"She doesn't want to listen to Jack bitch when _he_ has to feed the pterodactyl," says the woman, bringing a small smile to Ianto's face. She sits, and Ianto does too.

"You want to know what she told me?" the woman continues, scooting closer to him. The smile falls from Ianto's face.

"Martha," he says warningly, leaning away.

Martha, Eugene thinks. Maybe he did know that.

"She said things aren't going right with Jack," Martha continues. "And she thinks you're using this as a pilgrimage, trying to find out what happened to your friend, instead of fixing whatever it is."

"He doesn't deserve to be forgotten," says Ianto forcefully. Eugene is surprised by the words, can tell that Ianto is half-surprised himself. Martha leans forward and wraps her arms around Ianto, and this time he lets her. Eugene stands stiffly, only a few feet from them, wishing desperately he could be hugged, too. He remembers his mother's hugs, so solid and comfortable, the way she smelled like home. Even when he'd been embarrassed by her, even when he'd been longing to be someone unique and amazing and good enough to make his father come home – even then, his mother's hugs had been precious to him. They are even more precious now that he can never have one ever again.

After a long moment, Ianto wipes his arm across his eyes and pulls away from her.

"I beg your pardon, Martha," he says.

"Not at all," she says, and her mouth twists to the side. "Believe me, I know the feeling." She pulls her hands back into her lap and Ianto's eyes flick down to them. Eugene follows Ianto's gaze, but he can't see anything unusual. They're nice hands, but just hands.

Martha lifts one of them to cup Ianto's cheek and Eugene feels himself start to feel just the littlest bit better for seeing Ianto comforted. Then Ianto surges forward and presses his lips to hers, and all of the hairs on Eugene's neck stand on end.

He can see things clearly, perhaps too clearly for his comfort. Ianto's eyelashes are thick and soft where they flutter closed against the pale skin of his cheek. He tilts his face to one side and Eugene can see Ianto's hand come up to rest on Martha's shoulder. She shudders, and leans into the kiss, sliding her hand up into Ianto's hair.

Eugene doesn't know what to do. "This is awkward," he says. Then he flushes red all over. "And this is not how my time alone with Ianto was supposed to go!" He pounds a ghostly fist against a shelf.

As if his exclamation had been heard, Martha jumps back from Ianto and gives him a wide-eyed look.

"Ianto," she says, "this isn't a good idea." She laughs roughly. "Especially if things aren't working out between you and Jack. You need to talk to him. You can't want – "

"I do," he interrupts. "I want. I _need_." His eyes seem darker than usual. "This isn't about Jack. It's…" He trails off, and Eugene mentally revises his idea of what 'tired Ianto' looks like once again. "Okay, maybe it's a little bit about Jack. They're dead, Eugene is dead, and he won't—" His voice breaks and he looks up at Martha. Eugene wonders who else is dead besides him, hopes he won't run into whoever it is. One dead, confused person is quite enough. "Well," Ianto says. "He won't or he can't. And I don't want to be alone."

"You're not alone," says Eugene into the silence that follows Ianto's statement.

Then Martha says "yes" and strips off her shirt, and Eugene forgets to breathe (when he remembers again much later it turns out it wasn't really a big deal anyway). Her skin is dark and smooth and lovely, gleaming in the yellow light. Ianto groans as he looks at her, the unfamiliar sound almost torn out of him. He pulls her close and kisses her again, wildly this time, pressing his mouth wetly along the sharp lines of her cheekbone and jaw. The hollow sliver between his parted lips is the most enticing thing Eugene has ever seen.

He shouldn't be here, Eugene thinks, shouldn't be invading Ianto's privacy like this. Except… he's dead, isn't he? This is the most of Ianto he's ever going to get.

Ianto wrenches himself away from Martha and undoes his tie, pulling it off over his head and tossing it through Eugene's shins to land at the foot of the bookcase. Martha's hands slide down Ianto's chest, tweaking the buttons a little but mostly just caressing him. She seems to love running her hands up and down his sides, feeling the shape of him, and eventually Ianto huffs a little under the scrutiny. Martha smiles.

"Off!" she says, suddenly impatient. Ianto scrambles to undo the top few buttons, then pulls the shirt off over his head rather than spend the time to do the rest. He's gorgeous to Eugene, a dark smattering of hair against creamy skin. Martha doesn't even let him get his arms out properly before she's bending down to lap at one of his nipples, her pink tongue twisting around the nub.

"Oh, Jesus," says Ianto, arching his back. Eugene can see Martha's smirk for just a moment before he sees her teeth, and – "Oh, oh, _fuck_, please," says Ianto.

Eugene whimpers. Apparently being dead doesn't mean he can't get hard, and he's got his hand pressed against the front of his trousers trying to still the twitch of his erection. They are so beautiful together, one pale and one dark, but both lean and sharp and strong.

Martha pushes Ianto onto his back on the sofa and straddles him, then reaches back to unhook her bra. Ianto's hands come up to cup the swell of her breasts almost reverently, thumbs brushing along the sides and then up over the nipples. He curves his palms around her, alternating a soft, teasing brush of fingertips with a forceful massage. Martha grinds her pelvis down onto him without any rhythm, a steady moan coming from her throat.

"Ianto," she gasps. Ianto shifts her up with one hand on her hip, towards the arm of the sofa, and takes one breast into his mouth. Martha bucks against him even harder and Eugene fumbles as he tries to unbuckle his belt.

By the time he gets his trousers down, Martha and Ianto are both slick with sweat and saliva.

"Closer," Ianto says, his usually smooth voice rough. "I need—"

"Yeah," says Martha. They struggle to stand and Eugene shuffles a little bit further out of the way awkwardly. Martha and Ianto get undressed at the same time, Ianto stumbling out of his socks and looking almost ungainly for a moment. Then he straightens up and Eugene is not surprised by the passionate look in Martha's eyes. Ianto is beautiful.

"Come here," Martha growls. Ianto goes. Eugene moves to stand beside Martha as she admires Ianto, runs a hand over the swell of his arse and pinches it just the tiniest bit.

"Ah!" Ianto says. There is something akin to pain in his face.

"Shhhh," says Martha, and kisses him tenderly. She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him close.

Suddenly, Eugene can't bear to be only an observer. He's been doing nothing but watching for days now and he just wants. Well. He just wants to touch someone. He takes a step closer to Ianto, his ghostly arm sliding through Martha's. Ianto's eyes fall shut again and he shakes a little. Eugene wants to hold him, wants to comfort him. Before he thinks about what he's doing, he steps closer still, moving his whole body into Martha's space and mimicking her posture, arms around Ianto's neck and mouth pressed behind his ear.

"I've got you," says Eugene.

"I've got you," says Martha.

 

They stand like that for a long moment. Finally, Martha leans back to look Ianto in the eyes and reluctantly Eugene moves with her. Their left hands come up to cup Ianto's face and their right hands slide down Ianto's chest. Martha rakes her fingernails down the line of hair leading from Ianto's belly to his cock, and Eugene's fingers follow only a fraction of a second behind.

They touch Ianto gently at first, sliding their thumbs over the tip of his cock, teasing along the shaft, then reaching down to caress the delicate skin at the base of it. Ianto's eyes stay closed, his head thrown back. He's panting now, breaths bitten back in an obvious attempt at control. This is encouraging, and both Martha and Eugene move with more confidence now, their hands forming a fist around Ianto's cock, slick with sweat and pre-come.

Eugene angles his head forward more and looks down between them. He can see where the match up with Martha is imperfect – the lovely breasts, for one thing – but looking past that he can see his own slightly longer fingers, Martha's wider hips, his knobby knees and squarish feet. It is a very weird sight, Eugene admits, but it's sexy in its own way. Ianto wants to feel closeness and Eugene just wants to feel something, and god knows what Martha wants, but they all appear to be getting something pretty great out of the experience.

He tries to stop thinking so much. Their hands are moving faster now, letting Ianto set the pace with the thrusts of his hips. Martha's hand cupping Ianto's cheek draws him in and Eugene slips his head back into place within hers as she leans forward. They kiss Ianto, a hot, sloppy movement of lips and teeth and tongue, all clashing and mingling and sliding against and through each other.

Ianto's exhale of breath turns into a wordless moan, and he rubs his nose against Martha's with a shudder as he comes, pulsing hot and wet over her hand and Eugene's ghostly imprint. Eugene comes too, watching and hearing and smelling Ianto's pleasure but not quite able to feel it under his hands and against his skin the way he'd always dreamed of. Still, it is enough. His whole body stutters, falling out of the Martha-shaped space he had held himself in and sagging against the arm of the sofa.

After a moment Eugene can make himself look up and sees Ianto capture Martha's lips in a deep kiss. He moves his hands, still trembling a little, over her shoulders and down her back.

"What do you need?" he asks her.

"I—" says Martha. "Your mouth. Please, Ianto."

"Yes."

They shift back onto the sofa, and Eugene sits on the carpet next to it. He's too tired to move along with them anymore, exhausted by being both dead and post-orgasmic.

Ianto settles between Martha's knees and skims the side of his face along them, pressing a line of kisses to each thigh in turn. She smiles, then sucks in a quick breath when he stops teasing and puts his mouth to her. She spreads her legs further at his careful touch, looking delicious and wanton. And sensitive, apparently, because it doesn't take much – a few moments of Ianto's fingers pressing inside her, his tongue tender and rough – before she comes, crying out something Eugene can't identify.

Ianto gentles her through it with a caress of his hand across her belly, and when Martha stops shaking she draws him up into another warm kiss.

They are both beautiful, Eugene thinks. And Ianto, so strong even when he's falling apart – Eugene wants him now more than ever.

"I don't want you to find out what happened," he says. "I don't want this to end. I love you."

Ianto draws Martha into the bedroom and lifts up the edge of the covers. From his position on the floor Eugene can see them curl together in the bed without a word.


	4. Day 4: Ianto

He wakes before his alarm as usual. His arm is numb and he almost rolls over onto Martha before he remembers she's there.

"Bollocks," he murmurs. The sensation of being watched that he's been feeling for the last few days comes back with a rush.

"Mmmm?" says Martha, her cheek pressed up against his shoulder.

"Err," says Ianto. "Morning." Martha pushes herself up on one elbow and gives him a sleepy look.

"Don't be awkward," she says. "I haven't the energy. Let me give you this." She waggles her eyebrows. "And it wasn't exactly a hardship for me, either."

Ianto feels his mouth quirk up in a smile and some of the residual tension from the day before drains out of him. "Yes," he says. "Thank you."

"And if you'll take a bit of advice," Martha says, then hesitates, looking wistful. Ianto doesn't know what she's going to say – give up on Jack, don't give up on Jack, give up on Eugene, don't give up on Eugene – but he prompts her anyway. Martha's long since proved herself to be eminently sensible.

"Normally not before breakfast," he says, "but since it's you."

Martha laughs, then sobers. "Tell Jack what you told me," she says. "What you need. Sometimes he needs to be smacked in the face with things like that." There's something behind her voice when she says it, something Ianto knows has to do with the fact that she's no longer wearing a ring. But it makes him laugh anyway, and he gets up to open the curtains.

\-----

Martha spends breakfast telling delightful stories about UNIT mishaps with alien technology. Before she leaves, she stops and puts a hand on his arm. "Look, if you ever need anything. I mean anything."

Ianto nods and puts his hand on her cheek. "The same for you."

After Martha leaves him, Ianto dresses and sits down on the edge of the bed to methodically go through his options again. He doesn't for a minute believe that Gary's told him the whole truth; Gary is an even worse liar than Gwen is. Ianto decides he won't go to Splott.

He pulls out his evidence and goes over it again, looking for anything that might lead him in the right direction. There's the stand for the alien eye, and Eugene's note card about it, neither of which give enough information for Ianto to know what kind of alien it might have come from. There are Eugene's keys, complete with an extremely cheesy alien head keyring; Ianto remembered owning one just like it at some point in his teen years. He spreads them out with a jingle, fingers separating each key from the others and identifying them – car, house, locked box of pornography under the bed. Caught in the edge of the key ring is a scrap of paper Ianto doesn't remember noticing before, so he un-crumples it to reveal an orange cartoon face. Something about it is familiar, so he folds the paper and tucks it into his pocket before putting everything else away.

The feeling of being watched follows Ianto all the way to his car and back out onto the A48. He drives past the scene of Eugene's death and makes himself flick his eyes past it and scan the roadside for anything that could be significant. The car rounds a bend and then he sees it, the smiling orange face looming above the road, so close that Ianto has to curse and shift lanes in order to take the exit. A moment later he's pulling into the car park of The Happy Cook.

He flips Eugene's phone open with one hand and opens the door of the restaurant with the other. There's something in the air, and Ianto knows with a sixth sense that he's close to an answer of some sort. The waitress moves from behind the counter, revealing a pair of familiar, sensible black shoes, and Ianto takes a step forward.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he says. "My name's Ianto Jones. I just need to ask you a few questions."

\-----

Her name is Jen, the waitress, and she tells Ianto a story of betrayal.

"So then the chubby one said 'We did it as a joke to cheer you up. We didn't think we'd be the actual buyers.' I could tell that the skinny one, Eugene, he was pretty surprised, you know, and hurt? He said, 'You bid fifteen thousand for the eye?' I was pretty surprised by that because, the other one, the scruffy guy, he's in here all the time and always tips, like, fifty p. That type never has any real money. The people who've got it either leave nothing at all or tip really well, you know?"

Ianto nods, having worked as a waiter a time or two himself before Torchwood picked him up.

"So then," Jen continues, "they argued a bit and the scruffy one started getting mouthy about the whole thing, telling the chubby one to shut up and all, and then the skinny one stood up and pulled out his phone and said, 'I'm calling a cab.' Which I thought was choice, leaving without paying for his milkshake."

She frowns and Ianto makes a sympathetic noise.

"Except then the scruffy one grabbed his arm and they scuffled for a bit, so I went over to give him the sodding milkshake and that seemed to settle them down again. And the skinny one said, 'If it's all such a sodding joke, why do you even want it?' and the scruffy one said something smart and then the skinny one started shouting a little. He said, 'You're going to re-sell it online, aren't you? You cheap little gits.' Except then he looked around and lowered his voice, and that was the last thing I heard before they started fighting with each other and rolling around on the floor." She rolls her eyes. "So now they're inconveniencing customers."

Ianto makes another sympathetic noise. "You stepped in, I'm assuming?"

"Well," says Jen, "I tried. But then the skinny one, he sodding swallowed it, whatever it was they were fighting over! And then the stupid scruffy one grabbed him from behind and started shouting 'Heimlich! Heimlich!' What a wanker."

She makes a very expressive hand gesture and Ianto stifles a grin. "I'm sure that was a very difficult situation for you," he says.

"Well, that's just not acceptable behaviour. Not at a Happy Cook. They were making a public spectacle of themselves. But it least they didn't stick around much longer. The skinny one got free, not without a punch in the face, and that was it, he was out the door and gone."

The little bell over the door rings and Ianto steps back, ready to let the waitress help a customer before he goes back to his questions. Jen looks up, and her mouth drops open.

"Oh, my God!" she says. "That is so weird!" It's Gary and the video store guy, what was his name, Josh?, and Ianto feels a sudden homicidal urge come over him as all the pieces click together. The two of them, they'd cheated a friend out of a huge sum of money, then they'd mocked him for the very thing they were hoping to take from him. Luckily, perhaps, working for Torchwood has given Ianto a unique ability to recognize and stifle such urges. He steps a little bit further back against the wall as Jen walks towards them.

"Hi, doll," says Josh, twisting his mouth into a hideous approximation of a suave grin.

"Are you talking to me?" says Jen. She looks decidedly unimpressed. Ianto bites back a smirk.

"Yeah, sorry," says Josh. "Look, I don't know whether you remember us from last week."

"Yes," says Jen.

"Yeah, now the thing is, there may be people coming in to ask questions. A man in a suit, specifically. And I think…"

Ianto knows the moment Gary sees him leaning against the wall in the corner.

"Josh," says Gary warningly. Josh doesn't listen. Of course Josh doesn't listen, Ianto thinks.

"I think," he says, "it would be in your best interests if—"

"Shut up, Josh," says Gary.

"The woman is complying, man," says Josh, elbowing Gary in the ribs. Gary runs his hands through his hair, making it stand even more on end. Finally, Josh looks up and sees Ianto, who can't keep himself from giving Josh a sarcastic little wave.

"Okay," says Josh, looking desperate. "Cool." He turns and starts to run and Ianto takes a step forward. But then Gary sticks out his foot and then Josh is on the floor, looking up at Gary with hate in his eyes.

"What did you do that for?"

"I miss him!" says Gary, and sits down in the nearest booth, putting his face in his hands. Ianto tries to put all the hate he's feeling into the look he gives Josh, then sits down across from Gary and rests one hand on his shoulder. Gary deserves guilt, yes, but even with all his lies to Ianto and Eugene and everyone, he hasn't managed to achieve a Cyberwoman-in-the-basement level of mistake.

"I'm sorry, Gary," he says. "But you'll feel better if you tell me the truth."

 

\-----

Most of what they tell him Ianto's already heard, but he lets Gary tell it again, only prompting occasionally, because he knows it will help. And Josh's snide comments remind him a little of Owen, so he tells himself that maybe there's a heart hidden under that twattish exterior.

"So you ran after him, then?

"Yeah," says Gary. "We chased him across the car park. But Eugene was quite fast. Josh had new shoes, he was making a fuss—"

"Hey, hey," says Josh, "_You_ are overweight."

Gary ignores this. "He hared across the road and we lost him. Honest to God."

"Mmm hmmm," says Ianto.

"That's it," says Gary.

And it is. The story is over; Ianto's investigation is over. "All right," he says. He doesn't know what to feel anymore. Shouldn't he feel satisfaction at having finished the task he'd set for himself? It doesn't feel right to just go on with his life pretending that it makes no difference that people are gone, and Ianto had thought that perhaps he would experience some outpouring of emotion, some catharsis.

But there's nothing. He feels as empty and alone as he has since the attack on Cardiff. He still has Torchwood, still has his job, but it doesn't mean anything anymore. He'd thought that maybe answering the puzzle of Eugene's death would bring back the joy of it for him, would remind him of Tosh's delight in ferreting out bits of information. It hasn't, though. There's no mystery, no alien. Just people muddling along in their sad little lives. Perhaps that's all there ever is, Ianto thinks.

"Thanks," he tells Gary, sparing a glance for Josh, and stands up. He can't stand being here much longer, and he wants to walk Eugene's last steps himself. It's the work of only a few moments to scramble across the road and into the wide open field, the grass growing up past his ankles in scraggly patches. He can see electrical towers silhouetted against the backdrop of the hills, and a line of trees where the field meets the road. Ianto walks slowly, the dry ground cracking a little under his feet. He imagines Eugene running, angry and hurt but free and so full of life. And then Ianto reaches the trees. He can hear the cars rushing by and it's easy to imagine how it happened, easy to imagine thoughtless, careless Eugene, bounding out into the road.

In the shade of a tree Ianto reaches into his jacket and pulls out his phone, dialling a number he'd put in two days before, just in case. The other end picks up, and Ianto feels a weight settle in the pit of his stomach.

"Mr. Jones? You don't know me, but I'm a friend of your son, Eugene. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

\-----

Ianto can't make himself go to the funeral, but after he picks up the eye from the mortician, he finds himself standing across the road from the Jones' residence, watching the family and friends gathered there. He feels like he's still waiting, like there's a part of the story that hasn't yet been told, but he can't figure out what it might be. Ianto can feel the watching eyes now, as strong as they've ever been, and he wonders if it's Eugene himself wanting to know how it's all going to end.

"Eugene?" he whispers, feeling immensely stupid. "It's… I've got the eye now. If you're waiting for something else, I…"

Before he can finish the sentence, the familiar black SUV pulls up at the curb. Gwen piles out immediately, pulling Ianto into a hug and curling her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. It's comforting, and he feels the ball of unhappiness in his stomach melt just slightly. Jack is slower to get out and stands awkwardly a few feet away, but he gives Ianto an approving nod.

"Did you get it?"

Ianto holds out the bag wordlessly. Jack takes it, pulling out the eye and examining both the pupil and the underside. He gives a long whistle of appreciation.

"Impressive." His smile is almost sincere.

Another car pulls up in front of the Jones' house, and Ianto recognizes Eugene's father as he gets out. Jack turns to follow the line of Ianto's gaze.

"Who's that?" Gwen asks.

"It's Eugene's dad," says Ianto. "They were estranged."

"Ah," says Gwen.

Across the street, Terry turns his back to his father and Ianto sucks in a breath. Beside him, Jack trembles, then strides forward. Ianto curses under his breath and steps into the street after him.

Mrs. Jones puts a hand on Terry's shoulder and says something low in his ear. After a long moment, Terry turns again and takes the hand that Shaun Jones is holding out for him to shake. Jack stops, and Ianto pauses behind him, unwilling to break the mood of whatever thoughts are controlling Jack at this moment. Jack turns.

"Maybe you're right, Ianto," he says. In the back of Ianto's mind he registers the sound of screeching tires, but Jack's eyes, full of turmoil, are meeting his own at last and Ianto can't look away. "Maybe… maybe…"

Ianto opens his mouth, not knowing what he's going to say, and Jack's eyes go wide. "Ianto!" he says. Then suddenly something comes from behind, knocking Ianto off his feet and right into Jack's arms. A blue car screams through right where he'd been standing only a second before.

His weight overbalances Jack and the two of them go tumbling to the ground at the side of the road. Ianto scrapes his elbow on the pavement and feels the sting of it all the way through jacket and shirt to skin. Jack drops the bag, and the eye rolls a few feet away to rest in the grate of a storm drain.

Ianto looks up, trying to catch his breath, and promptly loses it again. A familiar man is there, half-crouched above Ianto in the road, and it shouldn't be possible.

"Eugene?" he says. Jack stiffens against his back.

"Eugene?" says Jack. "How…?"

"Are you okay?" says Eugene, and Ianto feels his mouth stretch into a huge smile.

"It's… I…" he says. He reaches out to touch Eugene's arm, his shoulder, his face. "A Dduw, but it's good to see you."

"You, too," says Eugene. He pulls himself up, then helps Ianto to his feet. Jack stands, too, and Ianto is almost too distracted by Eugene's appearance to notice that Jack doesn't move away. Then Eugene's gaze moves over his shoulder and Ianto remembers the family, all gathered for the wake.

"Can he see me?" Eugene says. Ianto's heart breaks a little.

"Eugene," says Shaun Jones.

Eugene's face splits into a grin. "He can see me!"

Ianto turns a little so he can see them, still holding Eugene's hands. The family wears stunned expressions, and Gary's mouth has fallen open.

"Thanks," says Eugene seriously, and Ianto turns back to look at him again. Eugene looks happy, more peaceful than Ianto has ever seen him.

"Thank _you_," says Ianto. "I mean. You saved my life."

"That's okay," says Eugene. On impulse, Ianto leans in and gives Eugene a quick kiss, which makes him smile even more widely.

"That's unbelievable," says Eugene, and behind Ianto, Jack laughs. "That's un-bloody-believable. Oh, God… I think that's it." He leans down to pick up the eye, then reaches past Ianto to hand it to Jack. "I'm putting this in your hands," he tells Jack, and Ianto swallows.

"Understood," says Jack.

"Wait," says Ianto.

Then Eugene looks back at Ianto, and there's a light growing behind his eyes. "I'll say hello to them for you," he says.

"Don't go now," Ianto says, but Jack rests a hand on his shoulder.

A bright light surrounds Eugene, engulfing him in white radiance. When Eugene's face is gone from sight, the light slowly begins to rise.

"It's over," Jack says. "He's gone." He sounds almost hopeful, and in that moment Ianto feels a little bit of hope in himself, too. The light moves upwards into the pink and orange and yellow sky, slowly dissipating as it goes. All of them watch, the Jones family and the Torchwood family, tilting their heads back until the light disappears and only the sunset remains. After a moment, Jack takes Ianto by the hand and leads him back across the street.

\-----

When they get back to the Hub, Gwen excuses herself with a murmured comment about dinner with Rhys before either Jack or Ianto can say anything. Ianto's grateful; he spent the whole ride back torn between thinking about the miracle of Eugene's appearance and thinking about all the things he wants to say to Jack. All the things he _needs_ to say to Jack.

As soon as the door is rolling shut behind Gwen, Ianto says, "tea," very firmly and goes to make it. Jack closes his mouth with a click and hangs up his coat. By the time Ianto returns with the tea, Jack has moved to the sofa and is resting with his head tipped against the back of it, eyes closed. Ianto pauses in the doorway and watches him for a moment. He could almost imagine himself curling up under Jack's outstretched arm and letting his weight rest against Jack's side.

"Smells good," says Jack, opening his eyes. Ianto sets the mugs on the coffee table and sits down at the opposite end of the sofa. Something flashes across Jack's face, but he picks up his mug and holds it in both hands, blowing a little across the surface of the tea to cool it. "Listen," he says.

"Wait," says Ianto. "I… Can I say something first?" He bites his lip. Jack looks down into his tea for a long moment, then nods.

"Okay," he says.

"All right," says Ianto. "I…" He stops again, then blurts it out. "You've left us again." Jack's head snaps up, and Ianto curses himself. That's probably not the best way he could have put it, but he's trying to follow Martha's advice. "Maybe not physically," Ianto ploughs onwards, "but mentally you're just… unavailable. You kept us going those first few days and then you just checked out, and that's not good enough."

Jack opens his mouth but Ianto can't stop now that he's started, and the words are pouring out. "It doesn't matter if you don't want me anymore," he says. "It doesn't matter if you don't kiss me or fuck me or drop your pen every ten minutes just to make me bend over. But you have to look me in the eye, Jack, you have to come for drinks at the pub with Gwen and Rhys and me when the Rift is quiet, you have to laugh when Myfanwy drops hay into Gwen's split pea soup. You have to be _here_, Jack, not still buried out there in the dirt." Ianto winces at his own words. "I'm sorry," he says. "I know I won't ever be able to understand what you've gone through. But I loved them. That counts."

"Of course it counts," says Jack, setting down his mug.

"And the longer you're here but not here," Ianto says, "the less Gwen is here, and then I'm alone. But I can't be alone, not after having loved them. I need to not be alone." His hands are shaking a little and he folds them firmly in his lap in the hope that Jack won't notice. This is the most he's ever said to Jack about his feelings, more than he's ever wanted to say (and there's Owen's voice in his head, telling him not to be such a pansy – god, he even misses being made fun of). He wanted for it to be enough, for whatever Jack was willing to give him to be enough. But it isn't enough to have nothing, not now that he's had something for so long.

There is silence.

"Are you done?" says Jack. Ianto nods, looking down at his hands instead of at Jack slumped against the other end of the sofa. And then Jack is there, gathering Ianto into his arms. He pulls their bodies together, wrapping one arm around Ianto's shoulder and bringing his other hand up to cup the back of Ianto's head. His breath is moist in Ianto's ear.

"I'm sorry," he says, holding Ianto tightly. "I'm so sorry. I promise I won't let you be alone again."

"What?" says Ianto, but his arms come up naturally around Jack's waist and he soaks in the warmth of Jack's body. He wants to hold back, wants to stop and figure things out because it can't be just this easy. But he can breathe in Jack's scent again for the first time in weeks, and suddenly he realizes just how much he'd been missing that one little detail. Jack smells of wool and shoe polish and something spicy that Ianto's never been able to place. He guesses it must be those fifty first century pheromones. Jack's cheek is a little rough against Ianto's, as if he shaved hastily that morning.

They hold each other like that for a long moment, then finally Jack pulls back, sliding his hands onto Ianto's shoulders and down to grip his elbows.

"I'm sorry," Jack says again. "When I was down there it was… it wasn't like being dead, but it wasn't being alive, either." Ianto forces himself to listen without saying anything. "I dreamed," says Jack, matter of factly. "I dreamed of you. And I couldn't… I guess I was waiting to see if this was a dream, too. Even when they dug me up, I just kept thinking that any minute I'd come back to life, and the dream would end. I don't think I could bear it."

"That's not going to happen," says Ianto. "It's over." Jack doesn't seem to hear him, just keeps talking in the monotone that's become his habit over the last few weeks.

"And then Tosh and Owen were gone, and I almost wanted it to be a dream, I almost wanted to wake up and still be down there, just so it wouldn't have happened." Jack's eyes are full of astonishment and Ianto's heart breaks a little. Jack's been around so long, he thinks, and yet he's still so innocent in the weirdest ways, still surprised by the fucked up things that life offers up to him. He cups Jack's face with one hand and Jack leans into it, his eyes closed.

"They were my team," Jack says. "The first Torchwood team that _I_ chose. And I loved them," he chokes out. "I loved them."

"I know," Ianto says. "I know." He pulls Jack close again and holds him for a long while until he can feel Jack's body relax.

When Jack leans back his face is wet, but there's a twinkle in his eye. "And what's this about no more dropped pens?" he says. "I'll have you know that's the best part of my day."

"Better than coffee?" Ianto asks. "Because I recently got a line on a bag of Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha beans. But if you're not interested…" Jack laughs, and Ianto's heart thumps crazily. He never tires of that sound, never tires of the way Jack's eyes go wide when he's surprised by the strength of his own amusement. There's hope for them, if Jack can still laugh like this.

"If you'd only serve the coffee naked like I asked," says Jack, "then I wouldn't have to choose."

"And what do I get, in exchange for getting goose pimples all over my bits, then?"

"I don't know. What would be enough to tempt you?" Jack's smile is teasing now, like he expects Ianto to demand a pony in exchange for naked butlering.

"Take me to bed," Ianto says, then sucks in a breath. He hadn't meant to ask so much so quickly, even with Jack's flirtation. But Jack's eyes go dark and he stands, pulling Ianto to his feet.

"Yes," he says.

They hold hands all the way to Jack's bed, only letting go long enough to climb down the ladder. Ianto sways a little, worn out from the emotional highs and lows of the day, and Jack pulls him close again.

"Okay?" says Jack.

"Yes," says Ianto. "Please." Jack steps back and takes off Ianto's jacket, hanging it carefully over the door of his wardrobe. Ianto starts to undo his cuffs and then Jack's hands are there, stopping him.

"Let me?" Jack's voice is quiet. Ianto gives a pleased little huff of breath.

"All right."

Jack's fingers skim over Ianto's wrists as he unbuttons first one cuff and then the other, the familiar calluses scraping against sensitive skin. He transfers his attention to the rest of the buttons, and soon has Ianto's shirt open, tugging his shirttails from the waistline of his trousers. Ianto shivers a bit at the combination of bareness and Jack's intent scrutiny, and when Jack's hands move lower Ianto stops him.

"Wait," he says. "I need."

"Anything," says Jack.

"Kiss me."

Jack's mouth is soft and warm and every bit as amazing as Ianto remembers. His kisses are intoxicating, filling Ianto with the sensation of glowing light and the rush of air, even though he knows it's just the sound of blood pumping in his ears. He wonders if this is how Eugene felt in those last moments, and kisses Jack with unrestrained fervour. Jack's tongue slides across Ianto's bottom teeth and curls around his tongue, lazy and pleased like a cat on a windowsill in the summer sunshine. After a moment Ianto breaks the kiss and waves in the direction of his crotch.

"Proceed when ready," he says, and Jack chuckles before kissing him again. Jack's hand works Ianto's trousers open, his other hand holding Ianto's arm so they don't overbalance. Then Jack drops to his knees and Ianto's mouth goes dry at the sight. He can feel his cock straining against the front of his boxers. Jack removes his shoes and socks, running his fingers tenderly over the arch of a foot and the hairy knob of an ankle. Then Jack pulls down Ianto's trousers and pants, leaving him bare as he kicks them away. Jack doesn't stand yet, just rests his face against Ianto's thigh and runs one hand up over Ianto's knee, so tenderly.

"You, too," Ianto says after a moment, and Jack's lips turn up into a grin. He climbs to his feet and strips quickly, tossing everything carelessly on the floor in the corner next to Ianto's trousers. Ianto wants to watch, but he can see that Jack's simply too worked up to give him that kind of show right now.

Naked, they curl together in Jack's bed, bodies and mouths pressing together as if they could somehow become one. Ianto's world is reduced to sensation: Jack's hands on his back, Jack's cock rutting against his thigh; Jack's lips caressing his jaw line and nibbling at the junction of neck and chin. Ianto can't get enough of it, keeps luring Jack closer with the arch of his back and the moans that spill from his mouth. His whole body is slick with sweat and Jack's open-mouthed kisses.

"More," he says. "Please, closer, Jack," he says, and Jack holds him tightly.

"Yes. Like this?"

"Yes," says Ianto. "You can fuck me later, but now, just touch me, just like this, _please_."

His demands seem to be what is needed, because Jack shudders and rubs his face along Ianto's shoulder.

"You're really here," Jack says.

"I'm really here," Ianto chokes out. "You're really here. This is happening." He drags Jack's hand down between them and curls it around his cock. "Feel me."

"Yes," says Jack. His hand strokes their cocks together, and the deliberate sensation rolls over Ianto like a wave. Jack hasn't touched him like this in almost a month, and the tenderness in his touch is Ianto's undoing.

"Jesus, _Jesus_," he says, and comes, hot and slick over Jack's hand and belly. Dimly beneath the pounding of his heart he can hear Jack coming, too, groaning with the strength of it.

They lie together, sated, and Ianto nuzzles his nose in Jack's hair. After a moment, Jack's breath hitches in a little hiccuppy laugh.

"Mmm?" says Ianto. "What?"

"Oh, just," says Jack, "thinking that it's probably good that Eugene's not invisibly following you around anymore. Because I don't think I would have wanted to share that."

"_That's_ what you're thinking?" says Ianto, snorting. Then the humour of it strikes him even harder and he finds himself laughing, great honking sobs of laughter coming from his throat. It's contagious, because then Jack's laughing, too, snickering like a naughty schoolboy and waggling his finger at Ianto.

"He had such a crush on you!" says Jack. "He was probably watching you shower and you didn't even know it!"

"Honestly," says Ianto. "Like I didn't get used to that from _you_." But then a thought occurs to Ianto and he sobers. "Jack, I…"

"Martha called me," Jack says, his grin softening into a fond smile. "So if you're worried about that, don't be. It's… I'm not angry."

Ianto looks into his eyes and finds nothing but sincerity there. "Good," he says. For all of Jack's rambling about the how restrictive he found twenty-first century sensibilities, he didn't always seem particularly inclined to share. Jack kisses him then, a slow, passionate press of the lips.

"But next time, invite me," says Jack, waggling his eyebrows. Then he cocks his head thoughtfully. "Hey, do you think Martha might come to work for us? We, um. We really could use another person."

Ianto thinks of Martha's tight smile, the way it seemed to please her so much to be needed and wanted. "Might," he says.

Jack starts to reply, but then his mouth opens wide in an unexpected yawn. Ianto finds himself yawning just as widely.

"Sleep?" he says.

"I think so. You'll, uh." Jack swallows. "You'll be here when I wake up?"

"Yes. Yes." Ianto runs a hand over Jack's forehead. He's starting to sound inane with these one word sentences, Ianto knows, but it's been a long day and he's tired. He manhandles Jack under the covers and curls up beside him, pulling the sheet up to his chest and then Jack's arm around his waist over the sheet. "Do so."

Jack snorts into his hair, but settles down and is soon breathing deeply and evenly. Ianto lies there for a few more minutes, his eyelids growing heavier, just enjoying the sensation of closeness and touch. Things will go wrong again, he knows, and there's plenty left for them to say to each other. But all that seems less important now, in Jack's bed, the echoes of a smile on Jack's sleeping face.

As he drowses, Ianto thinks of Eugene's face in those last moments, peaceful and free.

"Thanks, Eugene," he says, and drifts into sleep.


End file.
